Don't let me be misunderstood

Well this is an odd one.

I received a message the other morning from the mum of one of my daughter's old school friends.

No hello, no how are things, no context whatsoever, just a link to this article.

It's a first-person piece about a woman with MS worrying that her partner will end up being her carer.

That he won't see her in the same way and may feel stuck in the relationship. He reassures her on this of course.

It's a good article, very readable.

But bearing in mind that although this mum knows I have MS, I have never discussed it in-depth with her and certainly not this aspect of it.

I was honestly so taken aback at the fact that she would have seen it and just pinged it on with no kind of explanatory message, that I just laughed.

And then showed my husband who pulled one of those emoji-esque quizzical faces.

But really, what was she thinking?

Maybe she thought it would reassure me in case I was worrying about this? However, given the fact we've never discussed it, for all she knows, what this article sharing might have done is actually now put the thought in my head.

Did she think it was showing understanding of my MS and she was letting me know she was thinking of me? In which case, chocolates not random links, surely.

Did she mean to write some kind of contextualising message that would explain this random sharing? But like everyone, stuff got in the way and she never got round to it?

Or is this how she sees poor little me and my trapped husband? 

I can only presume she thought it would be useful, but without any explanation I have decided to file it under the long list of unsolicited 'help and advice' I have received from people over the years.

I didn't message back because just a ?? didn't seem to quite cover all my thoughts.

Maybe I'll just send her a link to this instead.

:: Don't let me be misunderstood by Nina Simone